# If Thanksgiving = Turkey, Christmas =? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [November 26, 2021, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-thanksgiving-turkey-christmas/954959 "2021-11-26T00:56:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-thanksgiving-turkey-christmas/954959/101 "2021-11-30T16:44:06Z")
Sukiyaki. But this branch of the family is Japanese-American. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-thanksgiving-turkey-christmas/954959/102 "2021-11-30T16:48:36Z")
Yep, my Dad was stationed for a while in Australia, and bitterly complained that the "hamburgers’ were usually “muttonburgers” with little or no beef. My Mom liked lamb, but Dad didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-thanksgiving-turkey-christmas/954959/103 "2021-11-30T16:50:59Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > My father-in-law couldn’t abide lamb after having being served mutton too many times at the boarding house he lived in post-WWII. I really like lamb, which my father cooked when I was a kid as back then imported New Zealand leg of lamb was fairly inexpensive. I’ll go out of my way to order it in restaurants that serve it and I occasionally will do a boneless leg roast as they are generally available in my area. But I’ve never been able to develop a taste for mutton - it’s a whole 'nother level of sheepiness and a bit stronger than I prefer. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-thanksgiving-turkey-christmas/954959/104 "2021-11-30T16:59:06Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Well I’m no sheep farming expert, but some of the largest sheep stations in Australia run to 5 million acres. It’s certainly not a cottage industry. I think the US is a bit of an outlier in its aversion to lamb. To be clear, I wasn’t necessarily suggesting that sheep operations in Australia or New Zealand were small, but “run to 5 million acres” suggests to me that the sheep are largely kept in pastures (or are free range) for most of their lives; if so, that’s unlike how most U.S. livestock production works. In the U.S., beef cattle typically spend a significant fraction (the last portion) of their lives in feed lots, where they are fed grain, among other feeds ([source](https://www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com/raising-beef/production-story)). Pigs, chickens, and turkeys on larger production farms in the U.S. are usually raised in fairly close quarters, rather than being “free range.” ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-thanksgiving-turkey-christmas/954959/105 "2021-11-30T20:09:38Z")
Yes, the “factory farms” that hold down meat prices in the US don’t have enormous footprints – the point is that the animals are jammed into relatively small quarters, and fed grain so they will grow quickly. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-thanksgiving-turkey-christmas/954959/106 "2021-12-01T08:22:30Z")
So that’s one way of keeping meat prices down (and a pretty unethical one, let’s face it). Sheep are a very useful animal to farm in places where land isn’t suitable for other animals or crops. I’m just disputing the argument that sheep are some niche, hard to farm animal in economically viable quantities. The rest of the world would beg to differ, as would your wool jumpers. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-thanksgiving-turkey-christmas/954959/107 "2021-12-01T11:53:27Z")
I have to ask: Is “The Whim” still open in Cambridge, England? I used to go there for an inexpensive, filling, and absolutely delicious lamb platter back in the '70s… ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-thanksgiving-turkey-christmas/954959/108 "2021-12-01T12:41:52Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > I’m just disputing the argument that sheep are some niche, hard to farm animal in economically viable quantities. So this: > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > It’s not nearly as common here in the U.S. in general anymore, likely for some of the same reasons that goose isn’t – it doesn’t lend itself as well to large-scale farming operations. But but my similar comment: > [@puzzlegal](#): > > It’s that lamb isn’t factory farmed. So it costs a lot more than most meats in the US, so kids don’t grow up eating it. And it has a distinctive enough flavor to turn off people who are expecting it to taste like beef, i expect. I suspect kenobi-65 meant the same thing i said, though. Also, i agree that factory farmed are unethical, but i think that’s a topic for another thread. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-thanksgiving-turkey-christmas/954959/109 "2021-12-01T12:47:38Z")
I think the point I was making was that sheep are certainly farmed in large-scale farming operations, particularly in countries that have the landmass, which the US certainly does. It’s not all about battery chickens! Don’t get me wrong, lamb is certainly more expensive than pork and chicken. But then so is beef. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2021, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-thanksgiving-turkey-christmas/954959/111 "2021-12-02T06:27:58Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > I’m just disputing the argument that sheep are some niche, hard to farm animal in economically viable quantities. To be clear, I wasn’t intending to say that (and if that’s what you got from my posts, I apologize for the confusion). In the U.S., modern, large-scale livestock farming has largely (and undoubtedly intentionally) gone over to the production of certain animals which can be raised to the appropriate age/weight for slaughter in as efficient and rapid a way as possible, which generally means factory farms and feedlots. My understanding, based on an admittedly small amount of reading, is that sheep (and geese, for that matter) don’t generally do well in _ **that method** _ of farming (at least, not as well as cows, pigs, turkey, and chickens), and thus, production of those types of livestock are substantially lower in the U.S., and many Americans rarely, if ever, see lamb or goose in a grocery store, or on a restaurant menu. Does the U.S. have large amounts of land that _could_ be well-suited for raising sheep? Sure, and there certainly _are_ producers of lamb and sheep here. But, they are dwarfed by the big operations, which focus on other species. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2021, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-thanksgiving-turkey-christmas/954959/112 "2021-12-02T09:48:46Z")
well, that and the beef vs sheepherder wars in the west didn’t help either … From a lot of accounts for a time it was almost actual war between the two [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-thanksgiving-turkey-christmas/954959.md?page=5)